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Issa Subpoenas National Park Service Documents During Oversight Hearing

October 16, 2013

WASHINGTON – Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., today issued a subpoena to National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis for documents related to the Park Service’s budget strategy during sequestration.

The subpoena was issued during a joint hearing on the Park Service’s decision to barricade open-air memorials, including the World War II Memorial, to visitors and veterans during the government shutdown. During both sequestration and the current government shutdown, reports have alleged the Park Service directed employees to make the budget setbacks as visible and painful as possible.

“After months of waiting, it is clear that Director Jarvis’s promise to deliver hundreds of pages of documents to this Committee is meaningless,” Chairman Issa said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that Director Jarvis has left us with no other option but to issue a subpoena.”

The subpoena requests to all documents to be provided by October 30, 2013. The documents in question were originally requested on March 27, 2013 before a Committee hearing in April on the Park Service’s strategy to implement budget cuts mandated by sequestration. On October 15, 2013, Chairman Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter to Director Jarvis which called the department’s actions seemingly “ad-hoc, inconsistent, and without sensible guidance to states, local communities, and the public at large.”